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{{quote|''You and Colonel Nicholson, you're two of a kind, crazy with courage. For what? How to die like a gentleman... how to die by the rules - when the only important thing is how to live like a human being!''|'''Major Shears'''}}
 
''The Bridge on the River Kwai'' is a 1957 [[World War Two]] POW film about the construction of the bridges over the River Kwai, although it's [[Very Loosely Based on a True Story|heavily fictionalisedfictionalized]]. It's based on a French novel ''The Bridge over the River Kwai'' by Pierre Boulle.
 
A British battalion is captured in Thailand and sent to a Japanese prison camp run by Colonel Saito. Notable among the prisoners is the battalion's commander, Lt. Colonel Nicholson, and Major Clipton, a medical officer.
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This film is either a true tragedy or the blackest of [[Black Comedy]].
 
It's best known for its [[Theme Tune]], the pre-existingpreexisting "Colonel Bogey March" (which is far better known to nearly every Brit - including those at the time - for a set of lyrics to the tune about the lack of genitalia of certain senior Nazis). But the film itself is a classic; it earned its Oscars, including best actor for Alec Guinness, best director for David Lean, and best picture.
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=== This movie contains examples of: ===
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* [[Downer Ending]]: Though it does a certain amount of irony to it.
* [[Face Death with Dignity]]: Nicholson and the officers almost let the Japanese kill them rather than violate their ethics by working on the bridge.
* [[A Father to His Men]] / [[An Officer and a Gentleman]]: Col. Nicholson. The character was based on [[Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkeys|French collaborateurscollaborators]] known to the author, while the actual colonel ([[wikipedia:Philip Toosey|Philip Toosey]]) was evidently above reproach. Even the Japanese second-in-command grew to respect him.
* [[Finagle's Law]]
* [[Gambit Pileup]]: The bridge construction plan versus the demoltiondemolition plan.
* [[Holiday in Cambodia]]
* [[Hollywood History]]: Among survivors of the construction of the Burma-Siam railway, there is often a lot of bitterness directed towards this film, as [[Real Life]] conditions were ''much'' worse, with 13,000 POWs and 100,000 civilians dying in its construction. The filmmakers felt depicting conditions as harsh as they actually were would be too depressing for filmgoers.
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* [[I Will Only Slow You Down]] / [[You Are in Command Now]]: Said by Warden to Shears after he is wounded, but Shears is having none of it.
* [[Kavorka Man]]: Shears, it seems.
* [[Knight Templar]]: Saito and Warden are too concerned with doing their job to the point of hurting their comrades, though Saito at leatleast has the excuse that he would have to commit ritual suicide if he failed.
* {{spoiler|[[Kill'Em All]]}}
* [[Know When to Fold'Em]]: Averted. Nicholson refuses to compromise his obedience to the letter of the Geneva Conventions (the Hague Convention and Nuremberg Principles also apply) and this results in two negative outcomes. First, the rations are reduced for all the prisoners. Second, he insists on building a superior bridge because of his [[Seven Deadly Sins|pride]] and the requirement that prisoners can be forced to work.
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